Search Result

Search Tags: Todd Harrison

The Obama administration already has made clear that it will request a budget Monday which violates the automatic spending caps in existing law. But for DoD, the war accounts, which are exempt from the caps, may serve as a backup plan.

Ashton Carter has chosen his support team for the confirmation process to become Secretary of Defense. Defense One reports three people will work with Carter: former Defense Business Board Chairman Michael Bayer; former adviser to Adm. Mike Mullen and Gen. Jim Mattis, Sally Donnelly; and 20-year Navy veteran Dave Copp. Todd Harrison is a fellow for defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. In his Top 3 for 2015, he tells In Depth with Francis Rose why the report from the Defense Department's Compensation Commission is probably one of the first things the new Defense secretary will deal with.

The big national defense authorization bill is moving through Congress. It passed the House yesterday, and the Senate is expected to take it up next week. In purely military spending terms, the bill is a mixed bag. Some programs and platforms get plus-ups, others get cuts. Todd Harrison is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He's been studying the bill, and joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive to analyze the bill's winners and losers.

The Republican Party now controls both chambers of Congress. That means some guaranteed new leaders for the Senate's defense committees, but the House of Representatives will see some new leaders of its own defense committees, too. Todd Harrison is Senior Fellow for Defense Budget Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he predicted what expect from the new leadership.

Readiness is the first casualty of sequestration, according to defense officials that testify to Congress about Pentagon budgets. Both uniformed and civilian leaders say budget cuts force all the branches of the military to sacrifice the training, equipment refreshes and other preparation they need to be ready to fight. Todd Harrison is senior fellow for defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic Budgetary Assessments. He writes in a piece called Rethinking Readiness in Strategic Studies Quarterly that the Defense Department should think about readiness in a new way. He also shared his conclusions on In Depth with Francis Rose.

An analysis from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments says the Defense Department will need between $200 billion to $300 billion more than budget caps allow to move forward with its current strategy.

U.S. surveillance flights are buzzed by Chinese fighter jets armed to the teeth. The Air Force conducts more than 150 bombing raids on the ISIS army in Iraq. President Barack Obama sends 1,000 troops to protect the embassy in Baghdad. NATO leaders wonder if they'll have to mobilize to defend against Russian aggression. Everywhere you look, there's military activity or the potential for more of it. How does all this play out when the U.S. defense budget is flat or shrinking? And the military's technical leadership eroding? Todd Harrison, senior fellow for Defense Budget Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with answers. Read the related story.

The Defense Department's overseas contingency budget might survive the end of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wednesday, two of the Pentagon's top civilian and uniformed leaders asked the House Armed Services Committee to keep authorizing an OCO budget even after the U.S. finishes the draw-downs in the region. DoD's latest OCO request came late in the year, and it's less than Congress anticipated. The House set aside $79 billion for OCO funding when it passed DoD's baseline budget for fiscal 2015, but now the Pentagon is only asking for about $59 billion. Todd Harrison is senior fellow for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He explained how the budget deliberations on Capitol Hill might unfold on In Depth with guest host Jared Serbu.

Judging from the Defense authorization bills that have passed the House and been marked up in the Senate, Congress seems to have made a hash out of Pentagon plans to meet its budgetary goals. Todd Harrison is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He joined Tom Temin and Emily Kopp on the Federal Drive to help sort out the reality of where Defense spending is headed and who will benefit.